Jeremy DeSilva on A Most Interesting Problem January 22, 2021 On February 24, 1871 Charles Darwin published The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, a follow-up to his most famous book On the Origin of Species. Read More
The year of conferencing virtually January 21, 2021 For editors and publishers, conferences offer the opportunity to present our lists as a whole to the members of the disciplines in which we are embedded, each title a star in its larger constellation. Read More
MLK Day reflections on diversifying publishing January 17, 2021 Publishing itself is an act of mutuality, a series of symbiotic relationships ranging from idea and page, to author and publisher, to bookseller and reader. The garments we create—books—are shaped by current knowledge, imagination, and tools, and are also often cloaked by or interwoven with fabrics of history. Read More
Translating science: The real work of forensic scientists January 16, 2021 When I tell people about my new book about forensic scientists, Blood, Powder and Residue: How Crime Labs Translate Evidence into Proof, they usually think about popular TV shows such as “CSI.” But there’s a gap between the public image of scientists and what scientists do, and this gap matters. Read More
Goya: A Portrait of the Artist January 15, 2021 The life of Francisco Goya (1746–1828) coincided with an age of transformation in Spanish history that brought upheavals in the country’s politics and at the court which Goya served, changes in society, the devastation of the Iberian Peninsula in the war against Napoleon, and an ensuing period of political instability. Read More
Material unfurling, digital scrolling, urban strolling, c. 1830–now January 14, 2021 The companion website, developed with support from Princeton University Press’s Global Equity Grant, supplements The Place of Many Moods: Udaipur’s Painted Lands and India’s Eighteenth Century. While taking the book to broader audiences, the website features objects published and studied for the first time in-depth. Read More
Hate in the Homeland: The New Global Far Right January 11, 2021 Hate crimes. Misinformation and conspiracy theories. Foiled white-supremacist plots. The signs of growing far-right extremism are all around us, and communities across America and around the globe are struggling to understand how so many people are being radicalized and why they are increasingly attracted to violent movements. Read More
Listen in: Rome Is Burning January 06, 2021 According to legend, the Roman emperor Nero set fire to his majestic imperial capital on the night of July 19, AD 64 and fiddled while the city burned. It’s a story that has been told for more than two millennia—and it’s likely that almost none of it is true. Read More
Can we bring extinct species back? January 05, 2021 Could extinct species, like mammoths and passenger pigeons, be brought back to life? In How to Clone a Mammoth, Beth Shapiro, an evolutionary biologist and pioneer in ancient DNA research, addresses this intriguing question by walking readers through the astonishing and controversial process of de-extinction. Read More
How Each Line Appears | some loose leaves January 04, 2021 Rain in Plural is the much-anticipated fourth collection of poetry by Fiona Sze-Lorrain, who has been praised by The Rumpus as “a master of musicality and enlightening allusions.” In the wholly original world of these poems, Sze-Lorrain addresses both private narratives and the overexposed discourse of the polis, using silence and montage, lyric and antilyric, to envision what she calls “creating between liberties.” Read More
Sexuality, gender, and race in the Middle Ages December 18, 2020 While the term “intersectionality” was coined in 1989, the existence of marginalized identities extends back over millennia. Byzantine Intersectionality reveals the fascinating, little-examined conversations in medieval thought and visual culture around matters of sexual and reproductive consent, bullying and slut-shaming, homosocial and homoerotic relationships, trans and nonbinary gender identities, and the depiction of racialized minorities. Read More
Katherine Zubovich on Moscow Monumental December 17, 2020 In 1947, Stalin decreed that eight monumental buildings be built in the Soviet capital. Seven of these neoclassical structures were completed in the 1950s and these buildings continue to stand today as originally intended: as elite apartment complexes, luxury hotels, and the headquarters of key institutions including Moscow State University and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Read More
The irrationality of 2020 December 16, 2020 Irrationality was published in 2019, but the real subject of the book, it turns out, is the year 2020. The book now seems to me to be describing a world that had been gestating for some years, but that only came out kicking and screaming, loud enough for all to hear and for none to deny, in the pandemic era, which coincides, significantly, with the final year of Donald Trump’s ignominious presidency. Read More
Listen in: The Jefferson Bible December 15, 2020 In his retirement, Thomas Jefferson edited the New Testament with a penknife and glue, removing all mention of miracles and other supernatural events. Read More
The mountain memories that fuelled Tolkien’s epic tales December 14, 2020 ‘It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door.’ Bilbo Baggins is thinking of adventure, of course, not pandemics. ‘You step into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.’ Yet The Lord of the Rings is a lesson in how far you can travel without leaving home. Read More